1697

1697 – Norwalk residents are planning to buy land
to the
north of their settlement, and the General Assembly appoints a
committee to
inspect a tract “lying about fourteen miles northward of the town of
Norwalk
to settle a plantation there.”

1706

May 9, 1706 – Little has happened with plans for a
plantation north of Norwalk until this day when the General Assembly
appoints
Captain Jonathan Selleck, David Waterbury and John Copp to visit the
area.
Complications arise and nothing happens.

1708

May 3, 1708 – Things are starting to happen. John
Copp
and John Raymond visit the territory north of Norwalk to inspect its
worthiness
for settlement. They may have camped at Settlers Rock at the south edge
of
today’s Ridgefield Cemetery on North Salem Road.

May 10, 1708 – Copp and Raymond report on the five
square
miles they investigated. They “find it to be accommodated with upland
considerably good & for quantity sufficient for thirty families, or
more,
and as for meedow & meedow land, something surpassing (both for
quantity as
well as quality) what is common to be found in many larger
plantations.” A
petition is prepared for the General Assembly.

May 13, 1708 – The Copp-Raymond report, along with
a
petition signed by 26 people who want to settle a new plantation, is
received by
the General Assembly. The petitioners report they have negotiated with
the local
Indians and are ready to complete a deal.

May 18, 1708 – The Lower House of the General
Assembly
approves plans for the prospective settlers to buy land from the
Indians.

Sept. 30, 1708 – “Catoonah, sachem of Ramapoo
Indians
and Associates within her Majesties province of New York in America,”
sells
the first settlers an estimated 20,000 acres. The price is 100 pounds.

Nov. 1, 1708 – A Town Meeting in Norwalk appoints
Samuel
Keeler Sr., Matthew Seamer [Seymour], Joseph Bouton, and John Copp “to
lay out
the Town Plott,” consisting of home lots at two and a half acres, plus
five-acre lots to the rear of the home lots. “The said Committee is
impowered
to act their best skill and judgement to equalize the want of quality
by adding
or allowing the quantity to such home lotts & division of addition
as they
in judgement may find wanting.”

Nov. 8, 1708 – The committee to design a Town
Plott
reports it needs more time to adjust lot sizes according to the value
of the
land.

Nov. 25, 1708 – The layout of the town lots is
completed
and the proprietors, meeting in Norwalk, have a lottery to distribute
the 25
original home lots on Main Street.

Nov. 25, 1708 – The proprietors lay out “ye
burying
yard” on upper Wilton Road East near Main Street.At least 40 people are buried there before townspeople in 1735
decide to
create a new cemetery at the north end of Main Street and bury people
there
instead.

1709

March 1, 1709 – The Proprietors agree to name a
committee
to divide up “plow land” within a mile and a half of the center of town.

March 28, 1709 – The plow land committee
recommends six
acre lots, with some larger if the lot contains some marginal land.

April 22, 1709 – The proprietors agree to allow
Ebenezer
Smith of Milford to join their numbers. He is given house lot 26, now
the site
of the Ridgefield Library, and the family later operates a tavern there.

May 12, 1709 – The General Assembly instructs
Major Peter
Burr, John Copp and Josiah Starr to draw up a survey of the proposed
new town
between Norwalk and Danbury.

May 23, 1709 – Sarah Benedict, daughter of James
and
Sarah Benedict, is born. She is said to be the first non-native person
born in
what will soon be called Ridgefield.

Oct. 13, 1709 – The General Assembly, meeting in
New
Haven, officially grants the first settlers permission to form a town,
and
approves the name, “Ridgefield.”

Oct. 13, 1709 – Matthew St. John marries Anne
Whitne,
said to be the first wedding in Ridgefield.

Dec. 23, 1709 – A Town Meeting is held, believed
to be
the first in Ridgefield. Previous Town Meetings had been in Norwalk.
John Copp
is appointed register or town clerk.

1710

Feb. 3, 1710 – John Copp is sworn in as town
clerk.
Although he holds this office, serves as a teacher and surveyor, there
is no
record of his ever having been a homeowner in Ridgefield. He did have a
farm in
what is now Branchville, however, but probably lived in Norwalk.

May 3, 1710 – A Town Meeting convened in Norwalk
defines
the Ridgefield-Norwalk town line [now Ridgefield-Wilton line] as to
“begin at
Spruce Tree known and standing by ye Hop Meadow Branch, and Runn three
quarters
of a Mile from Said Tree upon a North North West Course lacking one
Degree and
at ye Termination of said three quarters of a Mile to run the Cross
Dividend
line West South West and East North East lacking one Degree to ye East
and West
Division – between Norwalk and Fairfield and Norwalk and Stamford.” By
the
1970s, the exact route of this line is still unclear, and Wilton and
Ridgefield
have many debates over it.

1711

July 9, 1711 – Benjamin Hickock, one of the
original 25
home lot owners, sells his at the north corner of Main Street and King
Lane to
Thomas Rockwell, bringing a family here whose descendants are still in
town in
2008.

1712

Feb. 14, 1712 – Uzziell Hyatt, son of Thomas and
Experience Hyatt, dies. It is said to be the first death recorded in
the new
town of Ridgefield.

May 6, 1712 – To entice a blacksmith to move to
Ridgefield, the Proprietors offer Benjamin Burt of Norwalk a share in
the new
town and a lot at the corner of Main and Catoonah Streets [where the
Carnall
Insurance building is today]. He accepts, and establishes a family that
remains
a part of the community well into the 20th Century.

June 3, 1712 – Jonathan Stevens, one of the
original home
lot owners, has died and his mother, Mary Bouton inherits the land at
the
southwest corner of Main and Catoonah Streets. On this day, she sells
the
property to David Scott of Fairfield, establishing a Ridgefield family
that
still exists in town today. Sections of town – Scotland and Scotts
Ridge –
recall the family, too, and David Scott’s house is now the Ridgefield
Historical Society.

June 12, 1712 – The Proprietors grant Milford
Samuel
Smith land lying on both side of “Peespunk Spring.” It is the first
mention
a little-known locality, named for the Indian word for a “sweat lodge”
–
the equivalent of a sauna. The Indians would heat themselves up in the
peespunk,
then cool themselves off in the spring.

Oct. 9, 1712 – The General Assembly establishes a
church
in Ridgefield by allowing the town to tax its residents “toward the
settling
and maintaining of the ministry.”

Nov. 12, 1712 – The Town Meeting defines the
Meeting
House Yard – the village green. Much of it is today the lawn of Jesse
Lee
Memorial United Methodist Church. Here many ceremonies are to take
place, and
the local militia will train.

1713

Dec. 16, 1713 – The Town of Norwalk votes to
create a
road from there to Ridgefield.

1714

April 1, 1714 – A Town Meeting agrees to appoint
Ebenezer
Smith and James Benedict as a committee“to
rectifie
highways, where they shall be found needful to be rectified to take
from mens land where there is need, and to make it up to them again as
well as
they can to suit them.”

May 1714 – The General Assembly in Hartford
assigns
Ridgefield an official horse brand, which is an upside down heart.

May 22, 1714 – Representing Queen Anne of England,
Governor Gurdon Saltonstall signs the patent officially declaring
Ridgefield a
town within the colony of Connecticut.

Dec. 13, 1714 – The Annual Town Meeting elects the
Rev.
Thomas Hauley, the town’s new minister, as its register or town clerk,
to keep
all the records.

1715

March 18, 1715 – The Proprietors pay four pounds
to
“Tackora, alias Oreneca, Indian,” for land in the Scotland and
Ridgebury
areas, including the outlet of Lake Mamanasco.

1716

Jan. 30, 1716 – For a share in the new town,
Daniel
Sherwood agrees to come to Ridgefield and operate a grist mill at the
outlet of
Lake Mamanasco, land that had been purchased the year before from
Tackora.
Sherwood’s homesite is in 2008 the building housing Planet Pizza and
Dr.
George Amatuzzi’s optometry office.

April 30, 1716 – The county surveyor surveys the
Ridgefield-Danbury line, but only as far as Mopus Ridge. He “proceeded
no
further by reason of York Line not being run.” In other words, they do
not
know where Connecticut ends and New York begins.

1717

Nov. 6, 1717 – The boundary between Ridgefield and
Norwalk [now Wilton] is further defined.

Nov. 18, 1717 – The Proprietors distribute several
one-acre parcels “lying all together on ye hill on ye east side of
Horsepound
Swamp, bounded north by Bedford Road…” The deeds suggest the settlers
had
already set up a pound for stray horses along Old South Salem Road near
the New
York line.

Dec. 24, 1717 – A town meeting votes unanimously
to
“send to Mr. Reed for advice in our present difficulties in ye publick
affairs
and to fee him therefor.” The “difficulties” are never explained. It
may
have been the first (of many) times town officials sought the advice of
a
lawyer.

1718

Feb. 21, 1718 – The Town Meeting votes to
compensate with
equivalent land property people lost because of the creation of the new
road to
Norwalk [probably Route 33, Wilton Road West].

July 27, 1718 – John Sturtevant, one of the
original
settlers, dies before he is able to develop his Main Street lot.
Twenty-two
years later, the land is set aside for building an Episcopal church.

1719

1719 – The Smith family is operating an inn on
Main
Street, where the Ridgefield Library is today.

April 21, 1719 – Mary Scott sues her husband David
Scott
in Fairfield County Court, apparently for abandoning his family, and is
given
three acres of land. The land is probably near Lake Mamanasco and she
becomes
the first Scott settler in a neighborhood that is to one day take her
name,
Scotland District.

May 11, 1719 – Ridgefield petitions the General
Assembly
for “ye grant and donations of a small tract or gusset of land lying
between
ye bounds of Danbury and Ridgefield; beginning at yet southwest corner
of
Danbury line, extending northward by Danbury line four miles – hence
westward
to York line.” Danbury objects, saying it will “suffer great loss and
damage,” but eventually Ridgefield gets the land and soon after, it is
returned to Danbury.

1721

1721 – The town votes to spend “eight pounds for
ye
support of a school.”It is the
first mention of schooling in the town records.

1721 – James Bennett of Fairfield moves to
Ridgefield,
buys a sizable tract, and lends his name to a large section of town
called
Bennett’s Farm, and later to the Bennett’s Pond and its park.

Feb. 15, 1721 – The Proprietors deed Ebenezer
Smith
“seven acres, three roods, lying on Titicus, north of Fort Hill.” The
mysterious name, never explained in histories, probably stems from an
Indian
fort that stood somewhere on the hill west of North Salem Road.

Nov. 22, 1721 – The Proprietors complete the third
purchase from the Indians, paying six pounds for a sizable tract on
West
Mountain bordering Round Pond and including land now in Lewisboro,
N.Y., running
north through the area around Ridgefield High School and Mopus Bridge
Road and
east to Barlow Mountain and North Street.

1723

1723 – The Rev. Samuel Johnson, recently ordained
in
England, becomes the rector of the Episcopal Church in Stratford, and
serves as
a missionary priest to Ridgefield, which has about 20 families
following the
Church of England. He is considered the founder of St. Stephen’s Church.

Dec. 19, 1723 – The Annual Town Meeting votes to
build a
“meetinghouse” on the green that is 34 feet wide and 40 feet long, “and
28
feet between the sill and the plate.”

Dec. 20, 1723 – The adjourned Annual Town Meeting
votes
that “ye Rhode to Norwalk pass over ye Ball Hill, where it was laid out
by ye
jury.”The final layout near the
Wilton line will cause many problems in the next century.

1725

May 1725 – The new town is suffering from poverty
and
asks the General Assembly to exempt it from colony taxes. The exemption
is
granted.

Dec. 13, 1725 – The Town Meeting agrees to pay the
Rev.
Thomas Hauley, minister of the church, 70 pounds a year for three
years, and to
add 10 pounds a year after that until his salary reaches 100 pounds, at
which
point it will be fixed. Mr. Hauley is able to enjoy the full 100 pounds
for only
eight years; he dies in 1738.

1726

Sept. 26, 1726 – The Town Meeting votes to spend
147
pounds to finish construction of the Meeting House.

1727

1727 – The General Assembly commissions Samuel
Saint John
of Ridgefield as captain of the company of trainband (militia) in
Ridgefield.

Jan. 9, 1727 – “Ye white oak tree standing near
Henry
Whitne’s” house is designated the official town signpost, for
announcing all
town meetings. Whitne’s house is about where the First Church of
Christ,
Scientist, is now.

May 13, 1727 – Upset at the pending loss of town
territory due to moving the Connecticut line nearly two miles to the
east,
Ridgefielders petition the General Assembly for a grant of land north
of town
running to the New Fairfield border. Approval comes five years later.

July 4, 1727 – The Proprietors complete the fourth
purchase from the Indians, including Taporneck, Wett Hams, Moses,
Richard and
Samm and paying 18 pounds, two guns, and three bottles of rum.The land is now in Lewisboro and North Salem.

Oct. 29, 1727 – Ridgefielders
join the rest of the Northeast in feeling the effects of a major
earthquake
(said to have been 5.5 on the modern Richter scale). Since it is on a
Sunday,
many ministers take advantage of the symbolism in their sermons.

Dec. 27, 1727 – Joseph Lees is
appointed the town’s first “keeper of ye pound key.” The pound, used to
hold captured livestock that had been roaming and lost, was located on
the
village green.

1728

Dec. 9, 1728 – The Annual Town
Meeting agrees that ear marks are to be kept “in ye Town Book.” Over
the
years hundreds of brands for horses and livestock are recorded in town
record
books.

1729

March 7, 1729 – In the fifth purchase from the
Indians,
the Proprietors acquire more land now in New York State, from seven
Indians,
including Taporneck, Wett Hams, Crow, Moses, and Sam.

April 10, 1729 – The Proprietors complete the
sixth
purchase from the Indians, a sizable tract that includes much of
today’s
Ridgebury. The deed is signed by eight Indians, including Ah Topper,
Mokens, Waw
Sachim, Jacob Turkey and Captain Jacob Turkey.

1730

Nov. 21, 1730 – The first survey of the
Ridgefield-New
York border is completed.

1731

1731 – A new survey of the Connecticut-New York
border is
undertaken by Cadwallader Colden, a physician, botanist, and scientist
who later
becomes lieutenant governor of New York. He is also a Tory, who
conveniently
dies in 1776.

March 5, 1731 – The Town Meeting votes that in the
Meeting House, “ye front gallery be seated, two seats in front, and the
rest
of said gallery shall be filled up with well proportioned pews, and the
side
galleries shall be furnished with seats throughout and the Town will
bear ye
charges therefor.”

May 14, 1731 – Based on Cadwallader Colden’s
survey,
Connecticut and New York commissioners agree to the transfer of the
“Oblong.” Connecticut gives up a strip of some 61,000 acres, nearly two
miles wide, on its western border in exchange for what is now Greenwich
and
Stamford, which Connecticut got many years earlier. Ridgefield loses a
sizable
chunk of its town, but soon gains land to the north.

June 1, 1731 – Governor Talcott signs the grant,
giving
Ridgefield the “New Pattent,” land it had recently purchased from the
Indians and land that compensates the town for loses when the Oblong is
ceded to
New York. The New Pattent is bounded on the south by Ridgefield, east
by
Danbury, north by New Fairfield and west by the colony line. The patent
gives
Ridgefield’s Proprietors the rights to “all woods, timber, underwood,
uplands, arable lands, meadows, pastures, ponds, waters, rivers,
brooks,
islands, fishings, fowlings, huntings, mines, minerals, quarries, and
precious
stones upon or within said tract...”

1732

1732 – The list of all taxable properties in
Ridgefield
totals 5,419 pounds in value.

1732 – Benjamin Benedict is named captain of the
militia
in Ridgefield.

April 14-19, 1732 – The Danbury-Ridgefield
boundary is
surveyed.

1733

April 10, 1733 – Officials of Norwalk and
Ridgefield
perambulate the border between the two towns, making sure markers are
in place.

Dec. 3, 1733 – Deacon Smith records with town
clerk
Thomas Hauley the brand marks on his three-year-old white bull: “A crop
on ye
near ear, a slitt down yt crop, and a strep ye undr side yd same, and a
cross on
ye off ear brnded O on ye near hip; and O.W. on ye near horn.”

1735

1735 – The Rev. John Beach, Episcopal rector in
Newtown,
becomes a missionary priest to the congregation in Ridgefield.

Jan. 27, 1735 – The town votes to create a second
cemetery, located at the north end of the main street – what is now the
oldest
part of the “Titicus Cemetery” or “Ridgefield Cemetery.” The first
cemetery had been established earlier at the south end of Main Street.

March 14, 1735 – The town meeting votes to buy
“powder,
bullets, and flints” for the town militia or trainband. All men 16 to
60 are
required by the colony to bear arms and train at least six days a year
– in
Ridgefield, training is on the town green, which today is the lawn of
Jesse Lee
Memorial United Methodist Church.

1736

May 1736 – The General Assembly grants a petition
to
allow 310 acres in Ridgebury to be annexed by Danbury because all the
landowners
are Danbury residents. The land, on both sides of George Washington
Highway, is
eventually returned to Ridgefield [see
May 26, 1820].

1737

April 27, 1737 – Alexander Resseguie and Daniel
Sherwood,
among the founders of the Episcopal Church in Ridgefield, guarantee
that the
minister who serves the congregation will be paid 40 pounds.

Dec. 19, 1737 – The town votes to create a pound
in
Ridgebury near the meeting house.

1738

Feb. 28, 1738 – The Proprietors complete the
seventh
purchase from the Indians, including land now in New York.

March 26, 1738 – Philip Burr Bradley is born in
Fairfield. He comes to Ridgefield with his parents in 1759, a year
after
graduating from Yale. In 1770, King George the Third appoints him a
justice of
the peace, but he goes on to become Ridgefield’s highest ranking
revolutionary
soldier, who serves in many campaigns, and after the war, becomes the
leading
citizen of Ridgefield. President Washington appoints him the first
marshal of
the District of Connecticut.

Nov. 8, 1738 – The Rev. Thomas Hauley,
Ridgefield’s
first minister, dies at the age of 49. He is also the first resident
town clerk
and had also been a school teacher.

1739

Dec. 19, 1739 – The town makes the last of eight
purchases of Indian lands, a huge tract that runs from Ridgebury to the
New
Fairfield line. Most of it was ceded to Danbury in 1846. The deed was
signed by
Betty, Jacob Turkey and Mokquaroose.

1740

1740 – The Rev. James Wetmore of Rye, N.Y., serves
as a
missionary to the Episcopal congregation in Ridgefield.

Jan. 4, 1740 – The Proprietors agree to provide a
parcel
on Main Street on which a meeting house will be built for members of
the Church
of England.

Feb. 13, 1740 – David Scott sells Vivus Dauchy “a
certain Negro woman named Dinah and a Negro boy named Peter to be
servants or
slaves during the period of their natural lives.” The price is 200
pounds.

May 8, 1740 – The Towns of Ridgefield and
Litchfield are
censured by the General Assembly for not paying state taxes. “This
Assembly do
sentence and doom the inhabitants of the Town of Ridgefield to pay into
the
publick treasury of this Colony the sum of 29 pounds, 15 shillings….”

July 1740 – The Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll becomes
the
second minister of the Ecclesiastical Society (now the Congregational
Church).

1741

Dec. 22, 1741 – The town votes that students help
support
their schools. “Each scholar shall find a third part of a cord of good
sound
wood, and there shall be allowed after ye rate of 18 shillings a cord
out of ye
scholars rate.”

1742

Dec. 13, 1742 – “The Town by a major vote do give
Liberty to ye people living in ye New Pattent, that they shall be
allowed to
have a meeting four months in a year for two years on ye Sabbath or
Lord’s Day
among themselves to carry on religious worship, and to live and to hire
a man to
preach among them in ye sd. time so allowed to them, provided they do
it upon
their own cost and charge.”

Dec. 13, 1742 – The Annual Town Meeting also votes
that
“Madam Ingersoll shall have full liberty and equal privilege with Madam
Hauley
to sit in that pew ye Madam Hauley now sits in during ye town’s
pleasure.”
Mrs. Ingersoll was wife of the new minister; Mrs. Hauley was widow of
the late
minister.

Dec. 24, 1742 – At the “sheep meeting,” voters
agree
that in the future, money raised from loaning out the town-owned flock
of sheep
will be used for maintaining the town school. Twice a week, the town
flock –
said to be as many as 2,000 sheep – was loaned to the highest bidder to
be
kept at least overnight in his fields to take advantage of the manure
the
animals provided his crops.

1743

1743 – The first Town House is built and is used
for not
only meetings, but school.

Dec. 6, 1743 – The Proprietors make their last
purchase
of land from the Indians. The deed is signed by James, Boans,
Kiphaster,
Tapornick, Ammon, Crow, Old Mosos, Young Mosos, Tom Mosos, and Tom
Pornick.

Dec. 19, 1743 – The Town Meeting allows residents
of New
Patent, later called Ridgebury, to have their own church services four
months of
the year, and to hire a preacher.

Dec. 19, 1743 – Ridgebury Cemetery is established
by the
town meeting.

1744

1744 – The Rev. Joseph Lamson of Rye, N.Y., takes
on
missionary duties to the Episcopal congregation in Ridgefield, along
with
Bedford and Northcastle, N.Y.

Sept. 7, 1744 – The town has an auction to sell
“the
old school house” that had been replaced with the Town House the year
before.

Oct. 22, 1744 – John Barlow is born in Fairfield.
In
1769, he moves to Ridgefield and sets up a farm and blacksmith shop on
a hill
that now bears his name, Barlow Mountain. In 1802 he moves to New York
State.

Dec. 13, 1744 – The Town Meeting orders the select
men
“to procure good and lawfull weights in yet town, that, so other
weights in ye
town may be proved and regulated thereby.”

1745

1745 – The Rev. Jeremiah Leaming of Norwalk
becomes the
missionary to the Ridgefield Episcopal congregation, serving until 1762.

1746

Dec. 17, 1746 – The Annual Town Meeting chooses
John
Smith and Ambrose Olmsted as fence viewers, charged with making sure
fences keep
livestock out of neighboring crop fields. The tax rate is set at two
pence on
the pound. The meeting also pays the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll 200 pounds
for
“his work in the ministry for the year past.”

1747

Jan. 23, 1747 – The list of all taxable property
for 1746
is filed and totals 9,001 pounds.

March 18, 1747 – The Town Meeting votes that “two
women
schools be kept from ye first of April next till ye first of October
ensuing.”
One school will operate in the Town House and the other “at ye house
that was
built for that purpose a little northward of Jonah Smith.”

May 11, 1747 – Residents of New Patent have
petitioned
the General Assembly in Hartford for permission to have their own
minister to
preach to them six months of the year because it is so difficult to
attend
services in Ridgefield center. The meeting, perhaps fearing New Patent
will wish
to become its own town, votes to oppose the petition and sends Richard
Olmsted
Esq. to testify before the General Assembly in opposition.

Nov. 13, 1747 – The town fathers lay out two new
highways
in New Patent, which is apparently quickly being settled. It
compensates for
land taken for the roads by providing more land in other locations.

Dec. 22, 1747 – The “Anniversary Town Meeting”
votes
to pay the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll 400 pounds for his ministerial
services in
the past year.

1748

Feb. 10, 1748 – The selectmen order Richard
Portman to
leave town.

April 25, 1748 – “John Wooding and James Olgor was
warned by ye select men of ye Town of Ridgefield to depart out of ye
Town of
Ridgefield as ye law directs.”

May 2, 1748 – A Town Meeting appoints Lt. Joseph
Hauley
“to go to Mr. Walker at Stratford for his advice with respect to ye
aged
Daniel Abbott, whether to be it ye case to oblige Norwalk to keep him,
or
whether they force ye Town of Ridgefield to support him.”

June 16, 1748 – David Scott files notice that his
Negro
man shall be set free upon Mr. Scott’s death.

Sept. 20, 1748 – The Town Meeting agrees to pay
six
pounds for “the powder and lead that was taken up by the soldiers that
went
from us to guard the upper towns”in
the French and Indian War.

Dec. 6. 1748 – The Annual Town Meeting sets a tax
rate of
four pence on the pound, twice what it was two years earlier. The
meeting also
orders the Select Men “to stake out ye Burying yard near ... John
Smith’s
home lott, and fence ye same with a good rail fence, and also to
procure two
good shod shovels and an ax for digging graves, and all is to be done
up ye
charge and cost of ye town.”

1749

April 17, 1749 – The Town Meeting authorizes the
construction of a “Sabbath Day House” that is no larger than 12 by 10
in
size. [Popular in New England, a Sabbath Day house was a small building
with a
fireplace where families could warm up and have a bite to eat during
breaks in
the all-day services Sundays at the unheated meeting house.]

Aug. 2, 1749 – Caezer, slave of David Scott 2nd,
dies.

Nov. 25, 1749 – The list of all taxable property
is filed
and totals 10,255 pounds.

Nov. 29, 1749 – Joseph Broadbrook is told to leave
town.

Dec. 18, 1749 – The Anniversary Town Meeting votes
to
give the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll another raise, to 550 pounds, for the
previous
year’s work, but at the same time lowers the tax rate to three pence on
the
pound.It also votes to buy a
“black Broad Cloth pall” for town use at funerals.

1750

1750 – An Episcopal Church is erected in
Ridgebury, near
the intersection of Ned’s Mountain Road, about this time. Services end
in 1775
as war loomed, and resume briefly in 1789.

Feb. 12, 1750 – The Select Men “warned Joseph
Nickols
to depart out of town with his family under ye penalty of ye law.”

April 26, 1750 – Jabez Rockwell, John Rockwell,
Joseph
Keeler Jr. and “others living in ye North part of Ridgefield,” continue
to
petition the General Assembly for their own church or ‘society.’” This
was to include 12,000 or 13,000 acres in Ridgebury and the lands north
to New
Fairfield. The petitioners said they had land worth 3,550 pounds
sterling and
were able to support a society. The town continues to oppose and Samuel
Olmsted
Esq. is named the town’s agent to speak to the General Assembly in
Hartford on
the issue.

Dec. 10, 1750 – After electing the usual
officials, the
Annual Town Meeting votes that “ye tools provided for digging graves
and ye
Pall shall be lodged at the house of Sent. John Smith.” The tax rate is
dropped to two pence on the pound.

Dec. 13, 1750 – The Town Meeting votes to put a
new roof
on the meeting house “to consist or be made of chestnut shingles.” A
tax of
three pence on the pound is set to pay for it. The meeting also votes
to allow
Peter Benedict and Lot Keeler to have seats in the meeting house. The
two were
living in the Oblong, which had been ceded to New York in 1731.

Dec. 4, 1751 – The Annual Town Meeting elects town
officials, votes to pay Minister Ingersoll 600 pounds old tenor for his
work,
and sets the tax rate at three pence, half penny on the pound. But the
meeting
also votes a separate tax of a penny and a half on the pound to repair
the
meeting house.

1752

Jan. 20, 1752 – The adjourned Town Meeting votes
that
“a School Master shall be provided and shall keep a school, ye first
three
months from this time at ye Town house, and ye next 3 months at ye
upper School
house near Lt. Jonah Smith’s, and ye next 3 months at ye Town house,
and ye
last 3 months at ye sd. upper School house. Also vote yt a woman school
shall be
kept in each of ye places above for keeping schools when ye man school
is
vacant.”

Jan. 20, 1752 – The Town Meeting exempts residents
of New
Pattent [upper Ridgebury] from having to pay the tax to fix the meeting
house
since they by then have a meeting house of their own.

March 26, 1752 – The Town Meeting gives the Select
Men
the “power to allow as many women schools for six months within the
several
quarters of ye town, as ye Inhabitants shall stand in need of, so that
they do
not allow of a school where there is not twenty five scholars that can
and do
constantly attend the same, and the Inhabitants containing said number
of
scholars shall be at the trouble of providing them their own Mistress,
and the
charge that shall arises for said Mistress’s wages shall be paid out of
ye
Town Treasury.”

Dec. 19, 1752 – The Annual Town Meeting gives the
Rev.
Jonathan Ingersoll a raise to 650 pounds old tenor for the year.

1753

January 1753 – The listers [assessors] report that
property in town is assessed at 11,681 pounds.

Jan. 19, 1753 – The Town Meeting agrees that,
“upon ye
request of Mrs. Burrel Betts and Joseph Betts of Norwalk, made to
members of yet
Meeting above, to shew their minds respecting setting up a Wind Mill in
ye Town
of Ridgefield, whereupon the Meeting by a universal vote manifested
their
willingness that the said Burrel Betts and Joseph Betts try the
experiment of
setting up or building a Wind mill in the town of Ridgefield.”

Dec. 18, 1753 – The town votes to create a 30 by
25 foot
pound on Catoonah Street.

Dec. 24, 1753 – The adjourned Annual Town Meeting
votes
“there shall be three school mistresses provided and put into schools
the
first of April next and continued therein until the first of October
next, one
of them to be kept in ye school house near Lt. Jonah Smith’s, one of
them in
ye Town house, and one of them in or near Benjamin Rockwell’s house.”

April 20, 1753 – A gang of South Salem
counterfeiters,
including escaped convict David Sanford, sets fires in an attempt to
steal back
cattle confiscated by the government and kept at the Deforest homestead
in
Ridgefield.

1754

May 1754 – Ridgefield petitions the General
Assembly for
help in protecting itself from the gang of counterfeiters who are still
“distressing the people by fire and [who] keep lurking about the
Borders of
Ridgefield armed in Defiance of the Law.” The outcome is unknown.

Dec. 4, 1754 – Jacob Smith and Timothy Street were
elected “branders and tollers of horses for ye year ensuing.” [Tollers
collected taxes on horses.]

1755

March 26, 1755 – James Brown, “a transient
person,”
was warned to depart out of ye Town of Ridgefield.”

June 24, 1755 – The Colony of Connecticut sent
Ridgefield
48 pounds, 13 shillings, 8 pence, “it being in full of what is due from
ye
Colony Treasury to ye Town of Ridgefield for supporting ye school for
ye year
1754.”

Dec. 7, 1755 – Benjamin Stebbins Jr. is chosen
town
“packer” for the coming year at the annual Town Meeting. [Packers
packed
meat and fish intended for market.]“Mr.
John Benedict was chosen Collector of ye Excise on Distilled Spirituous
Liquors
ye year ensuing.”

1756

May 28, 1756 – Vivus Dauchy, captain of the First
Company
of Train Band in Ridgefield, is drafted to fight in the French and
Indian War.
He never returns, and is believed to have been killed in battle. He may
have
been the first Ridgefielder to die in battle.

1757

April 4, 1757 – The Town Meeting voted “that there
shall be six men schools kept in the town.”

August 1757 – 22 men from Ridgefield serve under
Capt.
Perez Fitch of Stamford, organized for the “Alarm for Relief of Fort
William
Henry and parts adjacent.”

Dec. 4, 1757 – At the Annual Town Meeting, John
Benedict
is chosen “gauger of casks” for the coming year. [This town official
inspected casks to make sure their measurements were as stated.] “Jacob
Smith
was chosen and appointed to receive ye Provisions or Country Produce
that shall
be brought in for payment of ye country rates now collecting.”

Dec. 17, 1757 – A tax of one farthing on the pound
was
voted to repair the meeting house.

1758

March 27, 1758 – The Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll, the
Ridgefield congregational pastor, begins a tour of service in the
French and
Indian War. Mr. Ingersoll is a chaplain under Colonel David Wooster in
the
campaign around Lake Champlain. Twenty years later, Wooster, then a
general, is
mortally wounded at the Battle of Ridgefield. Ingersoll remains in
service until
Oct. 8.

Dec. 14, 1758 – The Town Meeting votes to pay Mr.
Ingersoll seventy pounds for his ministerial labors. [The amount is no
longer
labeled “old tenor.” In 1755, Connecticut made a new issue of currency,
known as “new money” replacing “old tenor” and “new tenor”
currencies. A pound in this new money was worth many times more than a
pound in
the old tenor.]

1759

April
9, 1759 – Samuel Starr, William Castle, and Thomas Stephens petition
the
General Assembly to have their land annexed to Danbury, and a
Ridgefield Town
Meeting votes to send representatives to the assembly to oppose the
idea.

Dec. 19, 1759 – The Annual Town Meeting names
Caleb
Lobdell and Daniel Olmsted as constables, and when asked whether a
third
constable should be appointed, votes no.

Dec. 19, 1759 – The Town Meeting votes “that in
case
that Robert Farquhar don’t improve his time (for the benefit of himself
and
his family) better for ye future than what he hath of late done, that
the Select
Men appoint an Overseer or master to take care of him.”

1760

March 1760 – Mary Welch, Thomas Lawrence, George
Bartlett, Hezekiah Thayler with his family, and Nehemiah Sherwood with
his
family are warned “to depart the limits of the Town of Ridgefield.”

April 11, 1760 – John Gould Hauley, a grandson of
the
town’s first minister, dies at the age of 9. His gravestone in Titicus
Cemetery reads: “From youth and vigor soon he fled/ And here he rests
among ye
dead./ Uncertain here we draw our breath/ How soon we pass from life to
death.”

Dec. 23, 1760 – The Annual Town Meeting turns down
a
suggestion that “sealers of leather” be appointed for the coming year.
[A
sealer of leather attests to the quality and quantity of leather being
sold.]

Dec. 23, 1760 – The Annual Town Meeting votes to
show
“their willingness and free consent that the people that live within
and
northward of ye Military Line that runs a cross ye Township of
Ridgefield should
be made a Distinct Ecclesiastical Society, and that they apply to the
General
Assembly for that purpose.” The meeting also votes “liberty to Abraham
Nash
and Isaac Gregory the privilege of building a House for their comfort
on Sabbath
Days where ye Select Men think proper and to stand during ye town’s
pleasure.”

1761

April 13, 1761 – A special town meeting appoints
Samuel
Olmsted Esq. Samuel Smith Esq., and Stephen Smith “to examine ye
records of
Ridgefield respecting ye Grist Mill at Mamenasqua, and the covenant
relating
thereto, and report their opinion respecting ye same to a meeting of ye
town or
Proprietors of Ridgefield for further determination relating to said
mill
affair.” Apparently, there is a dispute about ownership of the mill
site,
established in a 1716 agreement.

May 1761 – Responding to the latest petition from
residents of New Patent, the General Assembly appoints a committee to
determine
whether the northern part of Ridgefield should have its own
ecclesiastical
society or Congregational church.

May 14, 1761 – “Man is made after a fearful and
wonderful Manner, imbued with noble intellectual Powers, a social
Creature,
capable of moral Government; and formed for Society both civil and
religious,”
begins the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll of Ridgefield in a sermon before the
General
Assembly in Hartford.

October 1761 – The General Assembly, on the
recommendation of its committee and the petition of residents, creates
a second
ecclesiastical society in Ridgefield and calls it Ridgebury.

Dec. 15, 1761 – The Town Meeting votes “that the
Select
Men of ye Town of Ridgefield or an agent by them appointed make
application to
the honorable General Assembly in order to get the annexment taken off
of a
certain tract of land lying in ye township of Ridgefield, which ye
General
Assembly in time past saw fit to annex to ye Town of Danbury.”

Dec. 28, 1761 – The First Society of Ridgefield
(the
First Congregational Church) votes that notices of society events and
actions be
posted on various trees in the village.

1762

Oct. 19, 1762 – John Whitlock donates land for a
church
building in Ridgebury “for and in consideration of love and respect
that I
have and do bear unto ye Dissenting Society in Ridgebury and to promote
ye
same.” [It is the first time “Ridgebury” appears in a town record. The
church group is called “dissenting” because it voted to break away from
the
First Society whose church is in the village of Ridgefield.]

Dec. 20, 1762 – The Annual Town Meeting fills its
usual
offices, including Richard Olmsted as keeper of the pound, and John
Benedict as
collector of excises.

Dec. 22, 1763 – The Town Meeting orders the Select
Men
“to procure a book in order for recording Grants and Deeds of land in
for ye
Town use and upon ye Town’s cost, and in a manner that may be most
advantageous to the town.”

1764

Dec. 11, 1764 – The Annual Town Meeting votes that
the
Town House be repaired and that “ye Select Men set up a sign-post
within ye
compass of ye Meeting House yard, and the same there to continue during
ye
town’s pleasure.”

1765

Dec. 4, 1765 – The Annual Town Meeting grants “to
ye
Inhabitants of Ridgebury Parish the liberty of making use of ye yard of
Samuel
Gates for a pound the year ensuing.” [This is the first use of the word
“Ridgebury” in an official town record, though it appeared three years
earlier in a deed.]

1766

Jan. 1, 1766 – An adjourned Town Meeting votes to
build a
new Meeting House, and asks the County Court to find a location.

Dec. 15, 1766 – The Annual Town Meeting orders “a
pound
to be erected near the place where Matthew Seymour’s Trading Shop
stood, and
likewise another Pound to be erected in Ridgebury Society, between John
Whitlock
House and the burying yard in said society; and each of them to be
built with
timber, at ye discretion of ye Select Men; and Caleb Lobdell was chosen
the
keeper of ye first, and John Whitlock the keeper of ye second mentioned
pound,
ye year ensuing.”

1767

Dec. 16, 1767 – Thomas Frost, David Rockwell Jr.,
Jonah
Smith Jr., Daniel Olmsted Jr. are chosen tythingmen for the coming
year. [Tithingmen
were like police at church meetings, making sure no one dozed off, and
also
handled disorderly and drunken people in town, including unruly youths.]

Dec. 25, 1767 – The First Society votes to reject
whatever site the County Court had selected for a new Meeting House
[see Jan. 1,
1766].

1768

April 11, 1768 – The Town Meeting votes to tell
the
General Assembly that Ridgefielders would greatly favor moving the
Superior
Court and county courts from Fairfield to Norwalk.

April 28, 1768 – The Ridgefield-Redding town line
is
perambulated. [It is the first time the “Redding” line has been
checked. The
year before, when the perambulation was run, it was the
Ridgefield-Fairfield
line, but the Redding parish of Fairfield has since become a town of
its own.]

April 30, 1768 – Matthew Seymour dies at the age
of 76.
Tradition says he established the town’s first trading post, located on
Main
Street near #149.

May 26, 1768 – Epinetus Townsend of Salem
(Lewisboro/North Salem), N.Y., becomes missionary minister to the
Episcopal
congregations in Ridgefield and Ridgebury. He remains until July 1776,
when the
churches in Ridgefield stop meeting because of the Revolution.
[Townsend is the
last of the series of missionaries that had served the Ridgefield
congregation
since its founding. During the war he ministers to British troops and,
in 1779
while on his way to Halifax, N.S., his vessel sinks in a storm in
Boston Bay.
All on board are lost, including him, his wife and their five children.]

Aug. 23, 1768 – The ecclesiastical society in
Ridgebury
votes to build a new church, 46 by 36 feet, and stipulates it should be
finished
by July 1, 1769.

Nov. 23, 1768 – The Congregational Church in
Ridgebury
calls its first full-time minister, the Rev. Samuel Camp, a 1764 Yale
graduate,
at a salary of 75 pounds. [Mr. Camp remains minister until 1804, when
he retires
due to failing health, but he does not die until 1811. He is buried in
the
Ridgebury Cemetery, a few doors north of the church. Alongside his
tombstone are
the identically designed, but smaller headstones of the three wives he
survived:
Hannah, who died in 1777, aged 34; Lucretia, died 1782, aged 35; and
Mary, 1800,
aged 55.]

Dec. 20, 1768 – Ebenezer Jones is chosen by the
Town
Meeting as constable to “collect ye duty on goods and merchandises
imported
into this Government by foreigners.” [Although Jones is chosen
constable a
number of times before and after this year, it is the only time this
particular
task is mentioned in the records.]

1769

Jan. 18, 1769 – The Rev. Samuel Camp is ordained
and
installed at the Ridgebury Congregational Church, which has 18 members.

Dec. 12, 1769 – A tax rate of a half-penny on the
pound
is set by the Annual Town Meeting.

1770

Sept. 24, 1770 – The town votes not to build a new
Meeting House and instead, repair the old one.

Dec. 10, 1770 – Jonah Foster is appointed a
representative from Ridgefield to the Fairfield County Court “in behalf
of ye
town in order to get the report of a committee set aside, (respecting a
highway
in Ridgebury Society).” [The nature of the highway dispute is not
disclosed.]

1771

April 15, 1771 – A Town Meeting tells the Select
Men
“to pay out of ye Town Treasury the sum of one pound, two shillings six
pence
lawfull money to Samuel Jacklin as a reward for his keeping Mary
Dimoral, an
indigent person.”

April 15, 1771 – Ridgefield agrees to join
Danbury,
Newtown, New Fairfield, Redding, and New Milford in petitioning the
General
Assembly “that a new county may be made in this colony, and that said
Danbury
may be made a county town.” [Clearly Ridgefielders and others are tired
of
making long trips to Fairfield, the existing county seat.]

May 1, 1771 – The on-again, off-again Meeting
House
project is on again. Plans for a new First Society Meeting House, 58 by
40 feet
in size, are approved. It will have a steeple.

Aug. 20, 1771 – The First Society votes that the
new
Meeting House be built with volunteer labor, but if that can’t be done,
to
“hire help.” [The church is not completed until early 1800.]

Dec. 7, 1771 – The Town Meeting votes “that the
Select
Men examine into the circumstances of Thomas Dowse, and if they judge
he be able
to pay off the bill of cost that hath been occasioned by reason of his
and his
wife’s sickness, last winter, that they use their best endeavours to
get him
to pay off the same, and if occasion require, that they commence a suit
against
him for that purpose.”

1772

Dec. 3, 1772 – “We the subscribers warned Gorham
not to
entertain John Adam on peril of suffering the penalties of the law.”

Dec.
13, 1772 – The Town Meeting votes a tax of a half penny on the pound to
cover
town expenses for the coming year.

1773

Dec. 14, 1773 – The Town Meeting votes that “swine
shall be free commoners in this town for the future.” The vote means
that pigs
are allowed to roam free in town. [See
also Dec. 4, 1786].

1774

March 14, 1774 – The Town Meeting appoints “Col.
Philip
Burr Bradley an agent to appear in the town’s behalf and attend a
Congress
proposed to be held at Middletown on the last Wednesday of instant
March in
order to consult proper measures to evade evils this colony is
apprehended to be
in danger of by reason of claiming and attempting to defend the lands
supposed
to be within the limits of Connecticut’s charter, lying westward of New
York
Government.”

Dec. 14, 1774 – The town votes unanimously not to
have
any “claim to or engage to defense the lands supposed to be within the
Limits
of Connecticut charter lying westward of New York government.”
[Connecticut
has title to more than 3-million acres in Ohio, the so-called Western
Reserve.It is not until 1796 that Connecticut finally sells the land to
developers.]

1775

1775 – Ridgefielders destroy all the known
barberry
bushes that had been imported from the Old World after it is found that
a
fungus, carried on the shrub, is causing a “wheat blast” disease that
is
ruining the local wheat crops.

Jan. 30, 1775 – With only nine dissenters, the
Town
Meeting votes to repudiate the Continental Congress. The meeting goes
on to
state, “We do acknowledge his most sacred majesty King George ye 3rd
to be our rightfull Sovereign, and do hereby Publickly avow our
allegiance to
him and his lawfull successors, and that we will to the utmost of our
power
support his throne and dignity against every combination in the
universe … It
would be dangerous and hurtfull to the Inhabitants of the Town to adopt
said
Congress measuresand we do hereby
publicly disapprove of and protest against said Congress and the
measures by
them directed to as unconstitutional, as subversive of our real
liberties, and
as countenancing licenciousness.” The meeting also votes “that the town
clerk be directed to make out a true copy of the above votes and
transmit them
to one or more of ye printers in New York that they may be published to
the
World.”

March 7, 1775 – Another town meeting is called on
the
Continental Congress issue. It adjourns to April 10.

April 10, 1775 – At an adjourned Town Meeting,
“The
question was put whether ye Town will explain their resolves of ye 30
of January
last? Resolved in ye Negative.”

May 1, 1775 – Despite the Town Meeting’s Tory
leanings,
Ridgefielders begin the fight for freedom. Captain Ichabod Doolittle of
Ridgebury is commissioned and, in the wake of the Battles of Lexington
and
Concord and responding to an act of the Connecticut Legislature,
organizes the 7th
Company of the Connecticut Fifth Regiment. More than a dozen
Ridgefielders join,
and serve in northern New York.

May 13, 1775 – Hezekiah Hawley, a farmer from
Florida
District, enlists in the Fifth Connecticut Regiment and winds up
serving
throughout the war, being discharged at West Point in June 1783.His eight years of service is longest of any of the
approximately 275 men
who served from Ridgefield. He fought at Ticonderoga, at Montreal, at
Monmouth,
wintered at Valley Forge and at what is now Putnam Park in Redding.

Dec. 7, 1775 – Annual Town Meeting changes its
mind on
joining the revolution. “On motion made, whether said meeting upon
reconsideration, do disannul the resolves enter’d into and passed, on
the 30th
of January, 1775, and adopt and approve of ye Continental Congress, and
the
measures directed to in their Association, for securing and defending
the rights
and liberties of ye United American Colonies? Resolved in the
Affirmative. Nem.
Con.” [Nem Con was short for ‘nemine contradicente,” which means
“without dissent.”] The town clerk is ordered to make a copy of the
resolution and send it to New York newspapers for publication.

1776

September 1776 – William Lee, a corporal in
Captain
Northrop’s company, dies at the age of 23.

Oct. 28, 1776 – Jared Hine, a soldier from
Ridgefield in
Wadsworth’s Brigade, disappears in the Battle of White Plains and is
presumed
dead.

Dec. 23, 1776 – A Committee of Inspection is again
appointed. It consists of 12 people, mostly from the first committee,
but now
including David Scott.

1777

Jan. 1, 1777 – Philip Burr Bradley of Ridgefield
is
commissioned a colonel in the “Army of the United States raised for the
defence of American Liberty.” The commission is signed by John Hancock,
president of the Continental Congress.

March 1777 – Jack Congo, an African-American from
Ridgefield, enlists in the Fifth Continental Line. He later dies in the
war.

April 4, 1777 – At the request of the governor and
his
Committee of Safety, a special town meeting selects James Scott,
Matthew Keeler,
Timothy Benedict and Samuel Gates “a committee to provide for ye
families of
such soldiers as shall enlist into the Continental Army, with
necessaries, at
the prices stated by law.”

April 4, 1777 – The Town Meetings votes “that this
Town
will give to each man that shall enlist as a soldier into the
Continental
Service (for three years or during the war, being an inhabitant of this
town,
till the quota of the town to fill ye Continental Army be completed)
six pounds
lawfull money for every year they are in said service, to be paid as
follows,
viz., six pounds at the time of their enlistment, the next six pounds
to be paid
within the second year, and so on yearly during their continuance in
service;
and those that engage that have families, if they die in service by
sickness or
sword, be paid to their widow or children one year after their death.”
The
meeting also agrees to borrow money to pay the soldiers, and to tax
townspeople
to pay the debt.

April 13, 1777 – Rumors of a British invasion
prompt many
residents to leave the village and hide in more rural sections of town.

April 25, 1777 – Twenty-six British ships,
including 20
transports, arrive off Compo Point in Westport, led by British General
William
Tryon. About 2,000 men land and begin marching north through Westport
to Weston,
where they encamp.

April 26, 1777 – The British troops move through
Redding
and Bethel into Danbury, where they burn food and other supplies stored
by the
local revolutionaries. Nineteen houses, more than 20 stores and shops,
and the
Meeting House are burned.

April 27, 1777 – British troops march from Danbury
to
Ridgefield and take part in several skirmishes with some 700 American
fighters,
led by Generals Benedict Arnold and David Wooster. Wooster is mortally
wounded
on North Salem Road while Arnold has his horse shot from under him on
Main
Street. The British encamp off Wilton Road West.

April 28, 1777 – The British troops set fire to
the
Episcopal Church, which had been used for military storage, heavily
damaging the
building. It is a Sunday morning. The troops then head south to Compo.

May 2, 1777 – General David Wooster, who had been
wounded
at the Battle of Ridgefield, dies in Danbury.

May 2, 1777 – James Rogers, taken prisoner by the
British, lists in a letter other prisoners taken during the raid on
Danbury and
the Battle of Ridgefield. Among them are James and Benjamin Northrop,
and John
Smith, all of Ridgefield.

May 26, 1777 – The Select Men ask the General
Assembly
for compensation for local losses during the British transit through
Ridgefield.
The petition says that “the enemy…burnt the gristmill and saw mill of
Mr.
Isaac Keeler of said Ridgefield, six dwelling houses, two barnes, and
killed and
carried off a number of horses and cattle.”When the British Army “took up their quarters in that town for a
night,
they plundered the inhabitants of almost all their provisions and of a
great
part of their clothing, etc. – by which means many are reduced to the
greatest
straits and such a number that said town are unable to make adequate
provision
for the relief of the sufferers.” The assembly appoints a committee to
investigate.

May 30, 1777 – Congress grants General Benedict
Arnold a
fully outfitted horse to compensate him for the one killed at the
Battle of
Ridgefield.

Aug. 13, 1777 – The General Assembly in Hartford
gives
Capt. Ebenezer Coe of Stratford 60 pounds in compensation for “a wound
by a
ball shot by the enemy” in the Battle of Ridgefield that “destroyed his
right eye.”

Sept. 8, 1777 – Phebe Birchard dies at the age of
28.
Within 18 days, her gravestone in Ridgebury Cemetery says, three
of her
children are also dead, probably of small pox.

Nov. 17, 1777 – The town meeting names a committee
“to
procure cloathing for the soldiers in the Continental Army (that the
Assembly of
this state has required the town to provide for.)”

Nov. 21, 1777 – The Select Men meet with Cyphax to
examine the 20-year-old slave of the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll. Mr.
Ingersoll
wants to free Cyphax, and under a recent law of the General Assembly,
the Select
Men must make sure he won’t be a burden on the community. They “do
judge him
an able bodied man and as likely to get a living as men in common in
his
condition are, and do therefore approve of his being liberated or set
free,
according to an act of the Assembly.”

Nov. 24, 1777 – The Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll frees
Cyphax.

Nov. 27, 1777 – John Watrous, constable, receives
six
wandering sheep and put them in the town pound.At the end of 20 days, they are sold “at the Ridgefield Signpost
at an
outcry, at the beat of the drum.” The town takes in 17 pounds, 10
shillings.
[“Outcry” is an old word for auction.]

Dec. 5, 1777 – A committee investigating
Ridgefield’s
losses in the Battle of Ridgefield reports to the General Assembly that
65
people report damages totaling 2,625 pounds. The biggest loss is Isaac
Keeler’s mills, totaling 291 pounds. It takes two years before the
assembly,
burdened with other war expenses, finally reimburses all the losses.

Dec. 15, 1777 – The Annual Town Meeting votes that
“one
of the places for setting up advertisements for the warning Town
Meetings for
the future be a button wood tree before ye door of Jesse Benedict’s
house.”

1778

Jan. 8, 1778 – At a town meeting, “The question
was put
to said meeting, whether the articles of Confederation and perpetual
Union,
drawn up and published by the Honourable Continental Congress, be
approved?
Resolved in the affirmative.”

March 3, 1778 – Probably to raise money for the
war
effort, the town decides to sell its stores of salt, a valuable
commodity used
more for preservation of meats than a flavoring. John Benedict Esq. and
Timothy
Keeler 2ndare appointed
“a committee to distribute the salt belonging to this town, as follows,
viz.,
one quart thereof to each person of ye several families of the men as
that are
inhabitants of this town that have taken the Oath of Fidelity to the
State of
Connecticut, and likewise to each person of the families of the widows
in this
town that are accounted friendly to the United States of America, and
likewise
to each person of the families of those men of this town that are in
the
Continental Army, and said committee are to take 6d lawfull money for a
quart of
the same, of the persons they deliver the salt to, and that said
committee
attend upon the business of delivering the salt, on the afternoon of
each
Thursday and Monday in this month, till the whole be delivered out, and
also
keep and render true accounts of their doings in the premises, to ye
Select Men
by the first day of April next.”

March 3, 1778 – The Town Meeting votes to spent
money to
care for the family of Sgt. Elisha Gilbert, a Continental soldier who
froze to
death at Valley Forge that winter.

April 2, 1778 – A proprietors meeting votes to
undertake
a suit to gain ownership of the grist mill at Lake Mamanasco, belonging
to the
Burt family, many members of which are Tories.

April 7, 1778 – The Town Meeting votes “That a
copy of
the Regulating Act, lately published respecting prices etc., together
with
doings of the authority and Select Men of this Town, be sent to the
printer, and
procure a number of them to be printed as to furnish each householder
in this
town with one, and to be brought and distributed accordingly and the
cost to be
paid out of the town treasury.” [A convention of representatives of
northeastern states had gathered in New Haven in January and, in an
effort to
curb inflation, set the prices of many wares and services.]

Oct. 2, 1778 – The Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll dies.

Dec. 14, 1778 – The Annual Town Meeting votes“to each soldier in the Continental Army (that counts for this
town)
the sum of six pounds LM, and the money to be raised by way of tax or
rate, made
on the list of 1778, and each soldier is to receive ye same by the
first of
March next.” The grand list in the First Society totals 11,708 pounds
that
year.

1779

Feb. 4, 1779 – Edward Jones of Ridgefield, found
spying
on American troops in Westchester County, is sentenced to death by a
Court
Martial at General Putnam’s headquarters in Redding. He is executed by
hanging
two days later.

May 7, 1779 – Asked whether the present mode of
taxation
in this state be agreeable,” the Town Meeting votes no. Ridgefielders
then
vote that “a mode of taxation be adopted whereby each inhabitant be
taxed in
proportion to their property.”

May 9, 1779 – Elijah, son of Bartholomew and Sarah
Weed,
drowns. He is 17 years old.

May 30, 1779 – Brigadier General Samuel H. Parsons
and
his brigade of 150 troops encamps in Ridgefield, probably at the corner
of Main
Street and West Lane, on its way to reinforce American forces on the
Hudson
Highlands.

July 11, 1779 – British General Tryon, who led the
Redcoats at the Battle of Ridgefield, attacks Norwalk. Among those
killed is
Jacob Nash of Ridgefield.

July 13, 1779 – Major General William Heath and
his
brigade encamp in Ridgefield on their way to Stamford to defend the
coastline
that the British had been attacking. He remains in town for some days.

July 14, 1779 – Brigadier General John Glover and
his
brigade encamp in Ridgefield at least until July 21. Colonel Stephen
Moylan soon
joins him with more troops.

July 28, 1779 – Major General Robert Howe,
stationed at
Peekskill, is ordered by General Washington to move his troops to
Ridgefield and
to take command of the various troops stationed here. “The primary
object of
this command is to cover the country, and prevent as far as possible
the
depredations of the enemy,” Washington writes.

Aug. 9, 1779 – A group of Ridgefield Tories is
gathered
up at night and taken to a river, where they are given a “prolonged
ducking,” reports historian D. Hamilton Hurd. Earlier that day, the
Town
Meeting votes against a resolution, “whether any person that was an
inhabitant
in this town, and hath absconded, and gone over to or joyned the enemy
of the
United States (and hath returned or shall return into the town) be
admitted to
dwell in the town, without the liberty and approbation of the town
first had and
obtained by such person or persons? Resolved in the negative.”

Aug. 9, 1779 – Times are getting tough. Samuel
Olmsted
Esq. and Robert Edmond are appointed delegates for the town to a County
Convention at Redding April 10 “in order to consult and adopt suitable
measures to prevent the further depreciation of the paper currency and
raise its
value.”

Sept. 18, 1779 – General Washington orders the
various
troops under Major General Howe that had been encamping here to move to
Westchester County.

Dec. 27, 1779 – Benjamin Chapman of Salem, N.Y.,
signs an
agreement with the town to operate the grist mill at the outlet of Lake
Mamanasco.

Dec. 28, 1779 – The Annual Town Meeting votes a
tax rate
of one shilling on the pound.

1780

1780 – Around this time, “the canker-worm” appears
and destroys the town’s apple crops “to a very alarming degree,”
reports
the Rev. S.G. Goodrich in 1800. The infestation continues until around
1794.

April 25, 1780 – The Ridgefield property of James
Morehouse, who “hath absconded and taken side with the British Troops
against
the United States,” is sold by order of the General Assembly.

June 29, 1780 – The town grants 30 shillings a
month to
each soldier from Ridgefield. The money would come from a tax.

Aug 23, 1780 – The Town Meeting decides to send
delegates
to the General Assembly “requesting that for the future, the method of
raising
and procuring soldiers for the present war may be by classing and each
class to
procure a man for said service.” [Classing involved dividing the town
into
districts or classes, and selecting representatives of each district to
serve on
a townwide committee. Each district would be responsible for procuring
its
allotment of people to serve in the Army. Usually, that was one man per
class.
This system was apparently adopted; see
Feb. 8, 1781.]

Oct. 2, 1780 – Major John Andre is hanged at
Tappan,
N.Y., as a British spy. Accompanying him to the gallows is Lt. Joshua
King, his
guard, who later becomes one of Ridgefield’s most prominent citizens.

Nov. 20, 1780 – The Town Meeting selects Nathan
Smith and
William Forrister “to receive the salt necessary for putting up the
provisions
required of this town to be provided for the army, and to perform every
part of
service respecting said provision, agreeable to an Act of the General
Assembly
of this State in their last sessions.”

Dec. 21, 1780 – The Town Meeting appoints Lt.
Ebenezer
Olmsted, a Continental army veteran who served under Col. Philip Burr
Bradley
and who is married to the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll’s daughter, as
constable
“to collect the state tax for the year ensuing.” It is an appointment
the
townspeople would later regret for many years.

Dec. 21, 1780 – The town Meeting allows
“inoculation of
ye small pox to be practiced in this town from this time to the first
of April
next and to be under the restrictions and regulations as is by law
provided in
that case.” [It had long been common knowledge that anyone who had
survived
small pox became immune to the disease. In the late 1700s,
“inoculation,”
also called variolation, involved infecting people with small pox,
usually from
pustules of people who had had mild cases, in the hope that they would
become
immune. It was often not successful – see
April 8, 1782.]

1781

Feb. 8, 1781 – Meeting voted “that the method for
raising and producing five men for this state service, to serve as
soldiers in
Col. Beebe’s regiment at Horseneck for the term of one year, be by
classing
the inhabitants into five classes, and that three of the classes be
divided out
to procure soldiers for filling up the Continental Army, be formed into
one
class and the three committee men living in the southern three classes
that were
appointed to class the inhabitants as above expressed be a committee
for the
class of the southern part of the town, and so successively through the
town to
the north end thereof. And Samuel Olmsted Esq., Nathan Olmsted, and
Robert
Edmond be a committee for the southern class, and John Benedict Esq.
Benjamin
Smith and John Jones a committee for the second classes, and Col.
Bradley,
Stephen Smith and Silas Hull a committee fore the third class etc.....
up to
fifth class. [See Aug. 23, 1780]

Feb. 8, 1781 – Nathan Smith and Ichabod Doolittle
are
chosen a committee to “receive, inspect and put up” the flour and
Indian
corn received of the town to be procured by the Assembly of this State,
agreeable to an Act of said Assembly passed Nov. 29, 1780.” [The flour
and
corn will be used to feed the troops.]

Feb. 15, 1781 – The Town Meeting picks “William
Forrister and Timothy Keeler Esq. to assist the town treasurer in
bringing into
the treasury the money due by law to the town treasury on account of
military
delinquencies (supposed to be on the hands of military officers).”

Feb. 21, 1781 – Colonel Beardsley comes to the
dwelling
house of Daniel Smith “to muster the soldiers procured by the town for
filling
up the Continental Army.”

March 23 1781 – Meeting chose Capt. David Olmsted,
Col.
Bradley Ebenezer Olmstead, William Forrister, and Stephen Norris a
committee
“to procure soldiers to compleat the town’s quota for filling up the
Continental Army and this state’s service.”

March 28, 1781 – New recruits for the continental
army
are to be delivered to the Select Men at the houses of Clements Smith
and Daniel
College, in order to be taken to Danbury to be mustered, and delivered
to an
officer and forwarded to the Continental Army.”

July 1, 1781 – Troops under Comte de Rochambeau,
on their
way to Yorktown to assist General Washington, encamp overnight at
several
locations in Ridgebury.

July 2, 1781 – In a field near the intersection of
Ridgebury and Old Stagecoach Roads, attended by the French troops, the
first
Catholic Mass is said in Ridgefield.

1782

Jan. 8, 1782 – Matthew Keeler frees his slave,
Dick, in
consideration of his long and faithful service. However, he adds a
proviso:
“If at any time the above said Negro slave Dick should become dissolute
and
idle in spending his time and earnings, and thereby likely in case of
any
misfortune to become a charge to me or my heirs, then it shall be
lawfull for me
or my heirs to again take said Negro slave into my or their service
during his
natural life.”

Feb. 19, 1782 – The Town Meeting votes to “raise
or
procure five soldiers for filling up the town’s quota of ye Continental
Army.”Captain David Olmsted,
Benjamin Smith and Stephen Norris were put in charge.

April 8, 1782 – Sarah, daughter of Bartholomew and
Sarah
Weed, dies “by the small pox by innoculation [sic],” her gravestone in
Ridgebury Cemetery reports. She was 26 years old [See
Dec. 21, 1780].

April 30, 1782 – The town meeting decides to “send
a
committee to the Town of Danbury to confer with their committee
respecting
preferring a memorial to the General Assembly, praying that ye town of
Danbury
may be made a half-shire town, for holding courts, for the County of
Fairfield.”

1783

1783 – The King and Dole Store is established on
Main
Street, and is many years later called Old Hundred. The store evolves
into the
D. F. Bedient Hardware store at the corner of Main Street and Bailey
Avenue,
which remains in business until 1998. The original King and Dole store
is now
the second floor of the offices of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

Dec. 2, 1783 – Stephen Smith is chosen both town
clerk
and town treasurer at, what seems from the minutes, a quiet Annual Town
Meeting.
But it is a doomed Town Meeting, for apparently some kind of local
rebellion was
going on. [See Jan. 8, 1784.]

1784

1784 – Ridgefield’s population is estimated at
1,700
people.

Jan. 8, 1784 – Something bad happened at the Dec.
2, 1783
Annual Town Meeting – or were there two different meetings that day?
The
Connecticut General Assembly reports that, “Upon the representation of
Nathan
Olmsted [and other] inhabitants of the Town of Ridgefield, showing to
this
Assembly that in ye forenoon of the 2nd day of December AD
1783, a
number of persons belonging to said town, stiling themselves a Town
Meeting, and
then and there chose and appointed a lot of town officers for said
town, who
have been sworn to a faithful discharge of their duties of their
respective
offices, and that afterwards and the same day, the Select Men with the
town
clerk and a major part of the inhabitants thereof, convened together
agreeable
to the ancient usage and custom of said town, and appointed another set
of town
officers for said town, who have also been duly sworn, which is like to
produce
Great confusion and disorder amongst the inhabitants thereof.
Whereupon,
resolved by this assembly, that each of the aforesaid meetings and all
the votes
and doings thereof, be and the same are hereby declared to beutterly null and void, and the inhabitants of said town, who
have a right
by law to vote in Town Meetings, are hereby directed and (impowered) to
meet
together at the usual place of holding Town Meetings in said town on
the third
Monday of February next, at 12 o’clock in ye said day, and to choose
town
officers for said town for the current year, and do any otherordinary business proper to be done at a legal Town Meeting....”

Feb 16, 1784 – As ordered by the General Assembly
Jan. 8,
a new Annual Town Meeting takes place and elects pretty much the same
officers
that had been elected Dec. 2 at the first meeting.

June 28, 1784 – Ridgefield’s followers of the
Church of
England have their first meeting since the Revolution. They vote not to
repair
the Episcopal church burned in the Battle of Ridgefield seven years
earlier.

Aug. 30, 1784 – The Town meeting is asked whether
“they
would do anything toward erecting a court house and goal in the Town of
Danbury?
Resolved in the affirmative. Whether they would do anything by way of
tax for ye
purpose aforesaid. Resolved in the negative.” The meeting recommended
that
“subscription papers to be drawn and handed about by the Select Men, in
order
to know what the Inhabitants would contribute for the purpose
aforesaid.” It
then dismissed all the previous votes, except for the selection of
Philip Burr
Bradley as moderator.

October 1784 – Jonah Foster, who was “head of a
class” in Ridgefield charged with hiring a soldier for the war effort,
tells
the General Assembly that a man was selected and paid “sixty hard
dollars”
to serve. However, before he could be mustered in, the recruit deserted
and
refused to be inducted.

Oct. 28, 1784 – The Episcopal church members in
town vote
to levy a tax of one shilling on the pound to support the church,
including
erecting a new meetinghouse measuring 40 feet long, 30 feet wide and 18
feet
tall inside.

1785

Sept. 20, 1785 – Lt. Benjamin Smith, a veteran of
the
Revolution, donates land to the Episcopal church, increasing the size
of its lot
on Main Street. With more land available, church members vote that the
new
church will be larger.

1786

1786 – The list of taxable property of the First
Society
totals 9,395 pounds while the Second Society [Ridgebury] is 4,901
pounds.

April 10, 1786 – The Town Meeting agrees to
“accept the
resignation of Lt. Ebenezer Olmsted of his office of collector of ye
state taxes
on ye list of 1780, on conditions of his accounting with and paying to
the
Select Men the full that he has collected and received on the rates
made on said
list, and deliver up said rate bills and warrants to the Select Men.”
The same
meeting appoints Capt. Nathan Dauchy to “be ye collector of ye rates
missing
on the list of 1780 that are not collected, which Lt. Olmsted has
resigned.”

April 26, 1786 – The proprietors of the
Independent
School House meet at the house of the Widow Clemence Smith and vote
that “the
proprietors of ye said Independent School House will take and
appropriate the
now Town House agreeably to the vote of the town respecting said town,
and
School House, and do wholly and fully invest the town with the
privileges
respecting said school house, which are mentioned in the town vote,
respecting
ye same.”

May 1786 – Responding to a petition from Redding
residents who live in the Great Pond area, the General Assembly annexes
to
Ridgefield land that had belonged to Redding. This odd spur of land had
projected into Ridgefield for many years and residents there found it
more
convenient to do business in Ridgefield, which was closer.

July 6, 1786 – The Rev. Samuel G. Goodrich becomes
the
third minister of the Ecclesiastical Society. He later becomes the
father of
S.G. Goodrich, known to millions in the 19th Century as
author
“Peter Parley.”

Aug. 18, 1786 – The Town Meeting appoints Col.
Philip
Burr Bradley and three other prominent residents “a committee to assist
the
Select Men in a settlement of the taxes which appears by Ebenezer
Olmsted, ye
late collector’s rate bills, to be due on ye bills he lately resigned
to the
select man, which we made on ye list of ye year AD 1780.”

Sept. 30, 1786 – The Town meeting votes that
“Ebenezer
Olmsted, late collector of ye state taxes for ye town of Ridgefield,
holden
under arrest at the suit of the town of said Ridgefield, shall be
liberated and
discharged from said suit, upon condition for the said Olmsted shall
fully vest
the fee simple right” to a list of his property holdings in town. The
property
includes his 13-acre homestead on Main Street, about 25 acres scattered
around
town, eight tons of hay, his right to some cows, and “2,258 Continental
Dollars.” He is ordered to deliver all to the town treasurer and told
to post
a 1,000 pound bond to guarantee payment of the owed taxes.

Nov. 30, 1786 – Perambulators, appointed by the
selectmen
of Redding and Ridgefield, survey the boundary between the two towns.

Dec. 4, 1786 – Town meetings begin being held in
the
Independent School House instead of the Town House.

Dec. 4, 1786 – A committee that includes such
notables as
Col. Philip Burr Bradley, Capt. David Olmsted and lt. Joshua King, is
ordered by
the Annual Town Meeting to “to make sale of the real and moveable
estate that
the town hath obtained of Ebenezer Olmsted, late, failing collector of
state
taxes.”

Dec. 4, 1786 – The town votes “that swine have
liberty
to go at large on the highways and commons provided they are ringed,
after they
are two months old, and that in the months of December, January and
February
they may go at large without ringing.” [Rings were put in the noses of
pigs to
prevent them from rooting – digging with their noses in search of food.
The
technique today is considered cruel.]

Dec. 7, 1786 – In an unusual expression of
gratitude, the
Town Meeting votes that “the thanks of the town be given to Mr. Stephen
Smith,
late town clerk and treasurer, for his long and faithfull service in
said
capacities declaring their satisfaction with and high appreciation of
his
conduct.” [Smith had been town clerk since 1746 – 40 years of service
recording deeds, minutes of town meetings, vital statistics and more.]

1787

March 8, 1787 – The Town Meeting is asked “whether
they
are willing the parish of Ridgebury should be incorporated into a
distinct
town.” Townspeople respond by voting “unanimously that the town will
not
make any opposition to the parish of Ridgebury being incorporated into
a
distinct town; and they are willing their memorial [request to the
General
Assembly] should be granted.”

March 12, 1787 – The town holds a sale of the
property of
Ebenezer Olmsted, who had pocketed the state tax collections he had
made in
1780. The house fetches only 129 pounds – Olmsted had paid 300 pounds
for it
in 1782. The sale and confiscations are not enough to cover what is
owed to the
state, however, and the issue drags on.

Sept. 31, 1787 – The First Episcopal Society sets
a tax
on its members of four pence on the pound. However, commodities are
accepted
instead of cash: Rye is worth three shillings and six pence per bushel;
corn,
three shillings; oats, one shilling six pence; buckwheat, two shillings
per
bushel; and flax, seven pence per pound.

Oct. 21, 1787 – Michael Warren captures seven
stray
calves that “are very small and poor” and reports them to town clerk
Benjamin Smith.

Nov. 12, 1787 – The Town Meeting votes unanimously
to
approve the Constitution of the United States, and names delegates to
the state
convention in January in Hartford to ratify the Constitution. “The
delegates
are instructed to declare the voice of the people at this meeting at
their
meeting aforesaid at Hartford,” the meeting orders.

Nov. 16, 1787 – Ambrose Olmsted Jr. becomes the
first
member of the Methodist Church in Ridgefield.

1788

Jan. 12, 1788 – In Hartford, Col. Philip Burr
Bradley and
Capt. Nathan Dauchy cast Ridgefield’s favorable votes as Connecticut
becomes
the fifth state to ratify the Constitution, which goes into effect a
year later.

March 3, 1788 – More tax collection problems are
discovered. The Town Meeting votes to appoint a committee to examine
“the
circumstances of Jacob Smith Jr., collector of state taxes, and find
what he has
on hand, what he has collected in said taxes, and what is due (or
uncollected)
on said taxes, and make a report thereof to this meeting.”

March 17, 1788 – Townspeople are not letting Jacob
Smith
escape his obligations. ATown
Meeting is asked “whether Jacob Smith Jr. their late collector, be
excused
from collecting the remainder of the taxes due on ye lists of 1781 and
1782.
Voted in the negative unanimously.”

Aug. 27, 1788 – In the first use of their new
church
building, members of the Episcopal congregation in town gather for
their annual
meeting to elect officers. The building’s interior is still unfinished
more
than two years after the project started.

Dec. 8, 1788 – Henry Scribner sells David Olmsted
a
“blacksmith shop and coal house,” and, in an unusual look at the
details of
a smith’s shop of the era, he details the contents of same: “one
bellows,
one anvil, one vise, one sledge, five hammers, one buttress, five pair
of tongs,
one pair of snippers, one breast wimble [a kind of drill], one
polishing file,
one coal shovel, one stake, two chisels, two swages [a block of iron
with holes
in it, used for shaping hot metal], one eye wedge, one lamper iron, and
one coal
rake.”

Dec. 22, 1788 – The Town Meeting votes that “the
Oak
Tree near Thomas Smith’s dwelling, be and serve as a place to set up
warnings
instead of the old Chestnut.” [This tree stood at the southeast corner
of Main
and Prospect Streets.]

Dec. 22, 1788 – The meeting also votes “that for
the
future all rams that shall run at large between the first day of August
and the
10th day of November, each year, shall be liable to be
castrated by
any persons, at the risk of the owner.” [In rut and pre-rut season,
rams may
be aggressive not only to other rams, but humans, and this law –
variations of
which are still on the books across the United States – is designed to
control
roaming rams that may be a threat.]

1789

1789 – The Rev. David Belden becomes the first
post-war
rector of the Episcopal Church. He lasts four months in the part-time
post.

1789 – Timothy Keeler Jr., Nathan Dauchy, and
Elijah
Keeler build an “irons works” on the outlet of Lake Mamanasco, off
North
Salem Road, “being the old mill place where the grist mill lately stood
that
was burnt.” The operation continues into the 1800s, but by 1817, has
closed.

June 28, 1789 – Itinerant Methodist preacher Jesse
Lee
gives his first sermon in Ridgefield in the Independent Schoolhouse on
Main
Street.

Sept. 15, 1789 – The Town Meeting votes to send
Col.
Philip Burr Bradley to Hartford to discuss “the state of ye taxes due
from
this town to the state treasury” – probably referring to the money tax
collector Ebenezer Olmsted had pocketed in 1780.

Sept. 15, 1789 – In a rare case of official
chastisement,
the Town Meeting says it “disapprove(s) of ye conduct of the Select Men
in
receiving Town Orders on account of State Taxes.” [The details are not
there,
but it seems to have something to do with the handling of Jacob Smith
Jr.’s
faulty state tax collections – see
March 3, 1788.]

Oct. 21, 1789 – Miriam Lobdell, wife of Josiah,
dies at
the age of 67. Her gravestone in Titicus Cemetery, however, reports
very clearly
that she died in 1287.

Nov. 14, 1789 – Ridgefield receives a notice from
the
town of Bedford, N.Y., that Peg Wilson, formerly a slave of Isaac
Miller of
Bedford, deceased, was freed “from a state of slavery by the last will
and
testament of Isaac Miller” and “is desired to pass and repass
unmolested.”

Dec. 15, 1789 – The town votes to allow the
building of a
pound in Limestone District.

1790

1790 – The census finds 1,947 people in Ridgefield.

Jan. 28, 1790 – Jesse Lee organizes a class in
Ridgefield. The first members of the precursor of the Methodist Church
here are
Mr. and Mrs. Ichabod Wheeler and Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Keeler. The group
meets in
the homes of members.

Oct. 16, 1790 – Bishop Samuel Seabury of
Connecticut
ordains Dr. David Perry, a Yale graduate who is also a physician in
town, as an
Episcopal priest. Dr. Perry becomes the first settled minister here
after the
Revolution.

Feb. 11, 1790 – Ten years after Ebenezer Olmsted,
collector of the state tax in the town, had failed to turn over his
collections,
the town is still dealing with the problem. It appoints a committee
find a
“speedy settlement” and takes an extraordinary step by voting to
authorize
the “Select Men [to] hire a collector to collect the arrears due on the
rate
bills … as cheap as they can.”

Dec. 16, 1790 – The Annual Town Meeting votes to
require
that any collector of state or town taxes be required to obtain a
performance
bond. To this day, the town requires and provides a bond on the tax
collector to
assure that if a shortfall occurs, the town is protected.

1791

March 1791 – The new Episcopal Church building is
completed, nearly seven years after the project was first approved.
Nonetheless,
there is still no pulpit until 1799.

March 26, 1791 – Abijah Resseguie is born on a
farm in
Whipstick District. For many years, he is the proprietor of the Keeler
Tavern.
As a boy, he witnessed the last flogging at the whipping post at the
corner of
Main Street and Branchville Road. [See
also Dec. 17, 1886 and April 16,
1887.]

Sept. 22, 1791 – The Rev. David Perry is named
part-time
rector of the resurrected Episcopal congregation in Ridgefield. There
is
considerable friction between him and church leaders, and he leaves the
post in
1795.

Dec. 12, 1791 – Some sort of controversy is afoot
as the
Annual Town Meeting convenes to elect town officials. Ridgefielders
vote “that
in ye present meeting it shall be a rule to choose a town clerk, Select
Men and
constables by silent vote.” The meeting then picks Benjamin Smith to be
town
clerk, and promptly adjourns from the schoolhouse to the church,
perhaps because
of the size of the crowd. There, Lt. Joshua King, Nathan Smith, and
Capt. Henry
Whitney – all leading citizens – are elected Select Men. The meeting
then
decides the rest of the town officers would be selected “by voting by
ye
hand.”

1792

1792 –Theophilus
Burt, who had “absconded and taken side with the British troops against
the
United States of America” and had had his land confiscated, petitions
the
General Assembly to restore his title to the Ridgefield land. Some
property near
Lake Mamanasco is returned.

April 9, 1792 – The issue of whether Ridgebury
should be
incorporated as a separate town comes up again and voters approve.
However, when
the voters are asked “Whether this meeting are willing to relinquish
their
right of choosing and sending two representatives to the General
Assembly of
this State,” they vote “in the negative.” It then votes that if
Ridgebury
is made a town, it should still join with Ridgefield in selecting the
two
representatives to the General Assembly. [Since the “town of Ridgebury”
was
never approved, this must have been a major issue.]

Dec. 10, 1792 – Apparently abandoning hope of ever
collecting all the taxes due from Ebenezer Olmsted in 1780 and from
perhaps
other years, the Annual Town Meeting instructs the Select Men to
“borrow such
sums as shall be necessary to settle ye demands the state treasurer has
against
the town.” The town is apparently so hard up for money that the same
meeting
votes to sell “the books containing the law of ye United States … to
the
best advantage for ye town.”

Dec. 10, 1792 – Ebenezer Olmsted isn’t the only
taxing
problem facing Ridgefield, who vote “that ye Select Men be instructed
and
authorized in ye behalf of ye town to borrow such sums as shall be
necessary to
settle ye demands the state treasurer has against this town.”

1793

Aug. 9, 1793 – Samuel Griswold Goodrich Jr. is
born in a
house on West Lane. More than 100 books are written under his pen name,
Peter
Parley, in the 1800s, and his two-volume autobiography, Recollections
of A Lifetime, gives a rare glimpse into Ridgefield
life in the early 19th Century.

Dec. 11, 1793 – Perhaps the town’s problems with
the
state tax collections have been settled, for the Annual Town Meeting
votes:
“The thanks of this meeting is hereby given to Major Joshua King and ye
other
gentlemen, Select Men and collectors, who have served the town in their
several
official capacities during four years last past, for their vigilance,
assiduity
and [unreadable] in their associative departments; and in particular
for their
spirited solutions in obtaining a settlement of the town’s debts due to
the
state treasury and individuals.”

1794

Spring 1794 – Soon after the leaves open,
canker-worms
that have been infesting apple trees for several years appear. However,
reports
the Rev. S.G. Goodrich in 1800, “There came into the orchards several
flocks
of uncommon birds, a little larger than a blue-bird, of a brown color,
and
picked the worms from the trees, as was also the case with a number of
flocks of
pigeons, which greatly checked them, and the frost which happens
sometimes the
latter end of May entirely destroyed them. So we have not one
canker-worm since
that has been heard of. Respecting the bird, it has never been seen
with us
since.”

Sept. 29, 1794 – The Farmer’s Chronicle in Danbury
contains an advertisement: “Hugh Cain, of Ridgefield, announces that he
can
full in the driest season, has now begun, and can continue to full,
provided
there should be no rain for six weeks to come. He makes all colors made
in
America (scarlet excepted).Mr. Cain
operated a fulling mill for processing cloth at what is now Route 7 and
Topstone
Road.

Dec. 14, 1795 – Nancy, daughter of the slave woman
Jenny,
belonging to Stephen Smith, is born. Under state law, she must be given
her
freedom at the age of 25.

1796

March 12, 1796 – William Resseguie sells Timothy
Keeler
Jr. and Daniel Olmsted, representatives of the First Society[the Congregational Church] “all right, title, interest,
challenge, or
demand that I … have in and unto one certain pew in the gallery of the
Meeting
House in the First Society of Ridgefield, said pew being the northwest
corner
pew in the north gallery.” The price is $6 – about $75 today.

Dec. 12, 1796 – The town votes to erect a pound on
Main
Street at the corner of what is now called Pound Street.

1797

Jan. 5, 1797 – Philip Burr Bradley and Joshua King
sell
Epenetus How a third interest in the “hatter’s shop” near How’s house
at
Titicus. The price of 30 pounds includes a third interest in the
“utensils”
and “tools” of the shop, plus the land. It may be the earliest recorded
mention of a hatting industry in Ridgefield.

May 11, 1797 – St. Stephen’s Church adopts the
constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Connecticut.

Dec. 4, 1797 – Pounds are apparently in
considerable
need. The Town Meeting establishes a publicly supported pound near
Samuel
Stebbins house and then, in an unusual move, votes “that liberty is
granted to
Robert Edmonds and his neighbors to erect a pound at their own expense
between
the dwelling houses of Stiles and Cyrus Edmonds.”

Dec. 4, 1797 – Seventeen years after small pox
inoculation is first allowed [see Dec.
21, 1780], the Town Meeting again decides that “liberty is given to
inoculation for the small pox, under the restrictions and regulations
of law.”
Unlike most votes, it is not unanimous, and the motion passes by “two
thirds
of said meeting.”

Dec. 4, 1797 – The Select Men are authorized to
“repair
ye roof of ye House where Yabecomb lives, at the town expense.”
[Gilbert
Yabbecomb, according to Silvio Bedini, came from Wales, and by the late
1700s,
was a town pauper. He was not without income, however, for he was
receiving a
four-pound annuity from England until 1802 on property he owned at
“Quarry
Park.”]

1798

May 8, 1798 – The Town Meeting votes “on motion
whether
this meeting will do anything respecting the direction of Capt. Nathan
Dauchy,
administrator on the estate of Jacob Smith Jr. deceased, what further
measure to
pursue with Josiah Raymond, now imprisoned in Fairfield Goal for a debt
due to
said estate, of which the town is a principal creditor, (said Raymond
having
taken the poor prisoners oath), voted in the negative.” [This is a
fascinating, but unclear action. Jacob Smith had been the state tax
collector
who failed in his duties – see March
3, 1788. How Raymond is connected to Smith is unknown. However, by
taking the
“poor prisoner’s oath,” Raymond is attempting to get out of jail by
swearing he has no property of value and has not conveyed any property
to others
to escape his debts. The voters clearly didn’t want to get involved in
whatever Capt. Dauchy felt might be done.]

Aug. 30, 1798 – The Town Meeting appoints three
men to
ascertain the value of land and buildings, as well as to enumerate
slaves, in
accordance with a recent Act of Congress.

Dec. 3. 1798 – The border between Ridgefield and
Norwalk
[now Wilton] is still in dispute, and the voters decide to ask
old-timers what
they recall about the border. The Town Meeting names Joshua King Esq.
to “be
agent to procure the testimony of some aged gentlemen to perpetuate the
remembrance of the bounds between Ridgefield and Norwalk towns.”

1799

1799 – The First Society has 10 schoolhouses
serving 433
children. Ridgebury has two more schoolhouses and about 75 children.

Oct. 18, 1799 – In the only perambulation ever
recorded
between the two towns, officials of Ridgefield and New Fairfield survey
their
joint boundary.

Dec.2, 1799
–The Annual Town Meeting appoints Samuel Stebbins “to inspect the wood
which
shall be furnished for the town’s poor.” [Could it be that the people
that
are supposed to supply wood – the 1700s equivalent to today’s fuel oil
–
were providing an inferior product?]

Dec. 2, 1799 – The Select Men are told to take
care of
Joseph Jagger for the coming year, “by way of public venue to the
lowest
bidder.” [Joseph Jagger came to town in 1774. Writing in 1800, the Rev.
S. G.
Goodrich reported that there were three “foreigners in the town who are
paupers,” one of whom was “named Jagger ... an old man about 95 years,
an
Englishman who served under the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of
Culloden in
1745, and was in Flanders with the regiment previous to that battle.”
Mr.
Goodrich said that Jagger “wrought jet work in cedar since he has been
in this
country, till he was near 80 years old and he will to this day ... sing
a
martial air he learned in Flanders and cry, ‘God save King George.’“
Jet
work may have meant inlaying cedar with pieces of polished black coal
to form
decorative articles. He died in 1802, supposedly at the age of 100.]